The NAACP leaders of the Seattle chapter spoke out against the dropped charges against one of Seattle’s own police officers. They claim that the department continues to use excessive force against minorities.
The Seattle police officer, James Lee, was convicted with assault for kicking a man outside of a convenient store. Initially Lee was believed to use excessive force, a fine line for officers to cross, but then after Lee gave his statement. After the statement was given Pete Holmes, a Seattle City Attorney, dropped a charge against a police officer. This decision sparked the NAACP to make an official statement disagreeing with the conclusion. President James Bible claims that the Seattle police department has problems that need to be addressed. Bible uses past encounters of violent police tactics for cases he has represented as an example of his outrage.
In addition to the case of Darius Yearby, who was kicked by Officer Lee after being placed in handcuffs, there was Terry Jefferson. Jefferson was pulled from his car and thrown to the ground resulting in the bruising of his face. Bible was disappointed to hear that all charges against these Seattle officers were dismissed. However, Bible plans to work to ensure that enforcement is being regulated by Seattle Police Department’s Chief John Diaz and Mayor Mike McGinn. However, he fears that since neither one of these men will be in their positions next year, officials will blame the problem solely of the leadership ethics. So, now that they are gone there will be nothing to fear, but action will be to be taken eventually.
I think that, in order to make things fair, and it dispel all acquisitions of the Seattle police department being racist that they should take action with their law enforcement officials. It is clear that there are imperfections in the system and it doesn’t benefit the reputation when you have a large organization like the NAACP speaking out against your department and questioning your integrity. I mean, police are supposed to keep people safe, not hurt them no matter who it is. I agree with James Bible in that Seattle officials are going to do their best to make it go away. However, it is going to be difficult with a nationally known organization calling you out against racism.
Also, another argument was made about certain situations that don’t get handled the best way out of thousands of call they get frequently. So, Sean Whitcomb, the Seattle department’s spokesperson, is trying to down play the severity of the incident by saying that since this doesn’t happen very often it is not that big of a deal. With this, he said they seek to do better but had no formal plans to address the issue at hand. In other words, he is just telling the NAACP what they want to hear.
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